The Midlands erratic hunt

Thanks to Richard for drawing my attention to this: 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/19/rock-project-missing-midlands-birmingham-boulders

See also this post from a few years ago:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2016/10/erratic-behaviour-in-midlands.html

It's all a bit of fun, of course, but it's nonetheless pleasing to see "Heritage of the Ice Age" being flagged up by Bromsgrove and Birmingham heritage organisations -- and accorded a cultural "value".  There are going to be seven erratic walking trails, which is great news.

I'm not sure who decided that these boulders were dumped 450,000 years ago,  in the light of the most recent evidence, but we'll let that pass......

Anyway, good for the University of Worcester and the National Lottery Heritage Fund for funding this project, and good for the Guardian, the BBC and other media for publicising it.

I think we should now have another "erratic walking trail" at Stonehenge.  It's quite a short walk, around the bluestone circle, or what's left of it.  Perhaps the National Lottery will also fund an erratic search across Salisbury Plain for all of the 40 or so bluestone erratics that have supposedly gone missing?

This is the dedicated web site:

https://erraticsproject.org/

See also:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-63289734

https://stonespecialist.com/news/stone-projects/restorative-techniques-helps-birmingham-come-clean-about-its-erratic-boulders

https://earthheritagetrust.org/birminghams-erratic-boulders-heritage-of-the-ice-age/

https://erraticsproject.org/the-erratic-boulder-hunt/

An 1890 map of the erratic boulders:

Known Welsh erratic boulders in the region:

This is a very useful summary of the geological context:

http://geologymatters.org.uk/2012/02/16/erratic-ice-of-the-black-country/

Update:

I have been making enquiries about the cosmogenic dating of some of the erratics, and I thank Prof Ian Fairchild for reminding me of the work of Seb Gibson and others.  I mentioned the new Midlands work here:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2022/09/more-on-wolstonian.html

There are actually 6 cosmogenic dates already, and I'll cover those in a separate post.